An Arizona Tragedy: A Bailey Crane Mystery (Bailey Crane, #1)
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An Arizona Tragedy: A Bailey Crane Mystery (Bailey Crane, #1)

by Billy Ray ChitwoodPublish: Aug 06, 2016Series: Bailey Crane Mystery Series - Books 1-6 (Each book stands alone!)Crime Fiction Thriller Suspense Mystery

Book Overview

Meet Bailey Crane, a son of the south, now firmly transplanted in Phoenix, Arizona. Bailey is six feet tall, one hundred eighty-five pounds, a ruggedly good looking guy in the mold of a young Christopher Plummer, the "Sound of Music" gentleman. Bailey has just enough nuance in his charming southern manners and speech to make h... im appealing to most, perhaps a bit flamboyant for some. He's got a soft manufacturing rep business that brings in easy money. He's an actor on the local and regional scene, doing television commercials, print modeling, and some theater. He's a private investigator for a few attorney friends in town, and, a former cop, he is an auxiliary detective for the Phoenix PD. Bailey has love, friends, golf, and a bon vivant life style. For the most part the man is a crusader without a cape and has life just about where he wants it.

In "An Arizona Tragedy" Bailey Crane's life takes a perilous and tumultuous twist when a young lady friend is brutally murdered in the Arizona desert. The friend, a twenty-six year old single mother and model, goes missing for weeks, is then found in a desert arroyo just northeast of Scottsdale, her skull crushed, her body ravaged and unrecognizable.

Working privately on an estate matter for one of his attorney friends, Bailey finds the name of his lady friend's boyfriend. The discovery does not necessarily have great significance but it does start the wheels turning in the mind of our southern sleuth.

Bailey becomes a target for an unknown pursuer and ends up battered, bruised, and angry. His strong feeling of hostility pushes him deeper into his friend's murder, and, finding a possible connecting link, he travels to Washington, D. C., to the hallowed halls and offices of the nation's lawmakers. At his hotel across the Potomac the unknown assassin strikes again, this time wounding our noble protagonist. The bad guy gets away, and Bailey has a temporary stay in a Reston, Virginia hospital.

Through more ironic turns and twists Bailey goes on to solve not only his friend's homicide but another brutal slaying in the nation's capital. With the help of his PPD buddies, and, one very special female cop, the bad guy behind the gruesome killings is caught. The climatic ending scene in this Bailey Crane caper is nail biting tense and will keep the readers riveted to their seats of choice.

"An Arizona Tragedy" was inspired by two actual homicides. The Phoenix slaying of the young mother and model has never been solved. With the decomposition of the body, accelerated by the desert's extreme heat and denizens of the habitat, evidence was scarce.

This Phoenix murder was also very personal for the author … he was a friend of the real murder victim. While "An Arizona Tragedy" was written to be commercially acceptable and successful, the author also wanted it to be a token of remembrance.

ONE READER'S BOOK REVIEW:
5.0 out of 5 starsA Thoroughly Enjoyable Must-Read!
By SUSAN H. MCINTYRE on November 7, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
I was glued to this story all the way to the end.. I want to avoid any spoilers, so I won't reveal the plot. the description, however, does not begin to show how well-written this mystery novel is. The plot has twists and turns, with a few red herrings that kept me from predicting the end. I loved that! In addition, the main character, Bailey Crane, is well-developed. I feel as if I know this guy. He philosophizes, loves, has friends, and yet stays on track of the case. This book was a delight, and I plan to read more by this author! read more

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Bailey Crane Mystery Series - Books 1-6 (Each book stands alone!) complete series

Billy Ray Chitwood
USA - Place of birth: Tennessee4 Books
Crime Fiction Thriller Contemporary Romance Romantic Suspense Time Travel Romance Literary Fiction Science Fiction Poetry Biographies & Memoirs History more»

BIOGRAPHY
I'm a young man in an old body, trying to catch up to myself, trying to find pieces of me I left back in a disconnected youth and the early years of manhood. I'm a stereotype of many in my generation who can play the 'blame game', yell 'foul', and 'let's start over'. But, we are what we are, the sum of all the scary ... kid-emotions we experienced, the gin mills and piano bars that became our sandboxes of pleasure - lotus eaters of the best (or, worst) kind, the love affairs that did not quite settle us down, the sad poetry and songs written in bars and motels along the way... A Dreamer! A Wanderlust! The world needs such fools as we to write our books, our poetry, our songs, to offset the madness that plagues the soul.

I've written eighteen books, some 400 hundred blog posts, in search of those pieces left somewhere in Appalachia and many parts of the globe. Literary gems? The readers are the ultimate judges. My writing has a clarity of style and excellent character development...I humbly suggest the reader will not be disappointed. read more

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Book Detail
Title An Arizona Tragedy: A Bailey Crane Mystery (Bailey Crane, #1)
Series Bailey Crane Mystery Series - Books 1-6 (Each book stands alone!)
Author Billy Ray Chitwood
ASIN B01JX89NF2
Publish Date 06, Aug 2016
Publisher Amazon
Language English
Page Count 284
Cover Design JAC
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